


Liquid Gold (Keeps My Heart Ticking)

by Aerugonian



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Child Abuse, M/M, One Shot, POV Bruce Banner, References to Suicide, Science Bros, Science Bros Week, Science Bros Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-07 15:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15222131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerugonian/pseuds/Aerugonian
Summary: Red is the color of Bruce's childhood.





	Liquid Gold (Keeps My Heart Ticking)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Science Bros Week 2018, for the prompt word "Gold".

Red is the color of Bruce’s childhood.

Crimson fills his vision to the beat of his heart, to the seeping of blood, three parallel lines like tallies standing out against the paleness of his arms where the bottle hit him. Broken glass litters the car seat he’s crouched on, amber beer staining the fabric of his shirt and pooling on the faux leather upholstery.

Fear is sour in his mouth, stinging his throat where a scream is stuck, his eyes lifting from the jagged cuts on his skin to the window.

His mother looks over at Bruce, one last time, and he can’t move as her head hits the pavement one, two, three, four times, his father’s hands entwined in her hair.

Red shines in the headlights, splatters on the window, imprints itself in his mind so vividly he’s not sure when exactly someone came and took him away.

Bruce is eight years old when he first wishes he’d never been born at all.

 

* * *

 

 

The chair they have Bruce sit on is a rich burgundy he thinks isn’t a very good choice for a courtroom.

He picks at a loose thread as the members of the court file back in. One end comes loose, the dark string stark against his fingers, resisting his pull as he tugs more firmly on it.

His father’s eyes are on him from across the room. Bruce refuses to look up at him. He already knows what he’d see.

Hatred, disappointment, rage, _disgust._

Bruce has always been a monster in Brian Banner’s mind, and now Brian Banner has become one in Bruce’s mind. His dreams are filled with crimson, streaking his skin and drowning him in an endless cycle he can only escape with drugs to keep it at bay.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

The thread starts to unravel. His fingers tighten around it.

“Not guilty by reason of insanity.”

It snaps off the fabric.

 

* * *

 

 

Gray is the color of Bruce’s adolescence.

The walls in “his” room are grayish-beige. The slate carpet is almost as firm as wood under his gray-socked feet, and it feels like it’s draining out every bit of personality he has left, leaving him as nondescript as this generic room a hundred children have stayed in before him.

The sky is dark like pewter when he packs his one bag two weeks later. They tell him it’s not personal, they just don’t think they’re the right fit for him, and he tells them he understands. He does. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t talk much, doesn’t play, doesn’t cry when they think he should. Bruce is abnormal, has been his whole life, and who wants a kid like that?

Most of the rooms are shades of gray, and after a couple years they blend together in a blur of ashen walls. It’s not his fault, they say. He’s a good kid and doesn’t cause trouble, they tell him.

There’s something not right with that boy, he hears in snatches of hushed conversations. His father was insane, and did you hear they found a dog killed just down the street? The kid is going to end up just like his dad.

Bruce never says anything in his defense. They wouldn’t believe him, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce feels gray.

His fingers tap a staccato rhythm on the charcoal couch. The ceiling fan hums and ticks and he’s creating a mental picture of how to make it run smoothly as his aunt stares at him, concern sitting heavy in her eyes.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

He knows what she’s really asking. White halls and beige rooms, a sad attempt to make things more comfortable as they ask probing questions about his past and a repeating tape of ‘how does that make you feel?’

Like ants crawling across his scalp. A beast pounding at his chest, rage building into a cacophony of sound and crimson, branded into his brain and only allowed to escape through his dreams. A fragmented heart, hastily taped together even as he knows he’ll never be put together quite right again. It doesn’t beat right anymore, arrhythmia only he can hear, and he longs for the day it’ll just give up completely.

Leaden fog has clouded the corners, obscuring what he can hardly bear to remember. He welcomes the apathy even as he can’t stand it. Bruce is a dead man walking through an endless sea of gray.

“No one can help me,” he says.

He expects her to argue with him, but she doesn’t even try.

 

* * *

 

 

Green is the color of Bruce’s twenties.

It burns in his veins. He knows he’s screaming but he’s being ripped to pieces, how could he not? His brain is being shattered and he’s sure this is it; this is how he dies, as a victim of his own arrogance.

What a joke his life has been.

Green blocks out everything else in his vision, a wave of fury overwhelming him right along with it. A corner of his mind scoffs at the irony – the color of peace and balance just _has_ to be the one that kills him.

As he picks himself up from the rubble an indeterminable amount of time later, Bruce realizes the sense of grayness he’d embodied for so many years is almost gone, washed away in a flood of hateful emerald.

His defective heart beats to the tune of rage.

 

* * *

 

 

Gray bleeds into green, and Bruce becomes a sickening sage.

Despair. There’s nothing he can do. He’s being left at the mercy of a monster (he is a monster) and

he couldn’t

even

die.

He should have done it sooner, before he became this unnatural amalgamation.

Emerald-colored memories tell him it’s pointless to even _try_ to recover his gun. It was nothing more than a pile of scraps, scattered on a bank of snow far from any sort of civilization. He’d chosen that spot to die for a reason, and it wasn’t for the scenery.

Turns out Bruce was right to take precautions.

He hadn’t had much of a life before the other guy came to be ~~or had it been there right from the start like his father had always said?~~ but what little he’d built for himself was long gone.

He didn’t even have the comfort of death anymore.

The forest he woke up swathes him in green-tinted light, colored by the plants around him. Long grass tickles at his legs, the fresh scent of rain heavy in the air.

He used to find nature calming. Now it just reminds him of his true character.

 

* * *

 

 

Gold is the color of Bruce’s adulthood.

It swirls around him like a storm, chases away the lingering tendrils of gray clinging to the frayed edges of his mind.

He knows it’s dangerous to put so much of himself out there. His life has been little more than a long, depressing string of pain, chipping away slowly at the vestiges of sanity he’s managed to hold onto through everything. Bruce is damaged. He’s broken.

And this man didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Tony sweeps into Bruce’s life in a whirlwind of color, a core of gold lighting up the darkened corners he’d almost forgotten existed. He’s fearless, brilliant, incredible. He’s everything Bruce had ever wanted to be in life.

He looks at him like _Bruce_ is the most amazing thing in the world.

Bruce should leave. He’s a loose cannon already loaded with the match held next to the fuse. The things he cares about inevitably end up destroyed, and, well. Even larger-than-life Tony Stark is human. Humans are vulnerable beings; it takes so little to kill one.

He would know, he’s seen it himself. He’s done it himself.

He couldn’t bear to be the one to extinguish that golden light.

Tony buys green tea and leaves it on the counter for Bruce to see. He wears green socks and the pillows on his sofa are suddenly switched out for a deep green and purple combo.

“It’s such a nice color to look at,” Tony muses when Bruce brings it up. “All nice and… cuddly.” Good god, this man is insane. “It’s my favorite color, so you shouldn’t act so surprised to see it around. Right, JARVIS? Green’s always been my favorite.”

No, it hadn’t been. There was a reason the Iron Man suit was red and gold, and the maroon color scheme in half the residential portion of the tower was pretty telling. Green was clearly a new trend. JARVIS’s brief pause before he confirmed Tony’s words was telling enough on its own.

Bruce doesn’t bring up his plan to leave. He’s not sure he could go through with it, anyway, consequences be damned.

He’s already in too far.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony’s hair flashes gold in the light of the lab, flames reflected as he whoops in pleasure over the flammable results of his latest experiment.

He’s beautiful like this, all explosive energy like a sun pulling Bruce in a close orbit around him. His smile is infectious, his passion plain for anyone who takes a second glance (and who wouldn’t? Tony’s hard to look away from).

Tony turns to look at him, and he grins when he meets Bruce’s gaze. His liquid gold eyes fade into their natural brown as the fire burns itself out, and Bruce is struck by just how much he wants this, even as the thorns of his past warns him against wanting anything at all.

“I don’t want to leave,” Bruce says suddenly.

“Ever?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow as if daring Bruce to change his mind. Bruce hesitates for only a second.

“Ever.” And he means it. He can’t imagine ever going back to his solitary existence – and that’s all it had been, existing; he’d never _lived_ , not until now.

“No take-backsies,” Tony says. One last chance to back out.

Bruce’s lips quirk into a lopsided smile. “I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

Tony smiles, bright and vibrant and so full of life. “I thought you’d never say so.”

 

* * *

 

 

The cracks in Bruce’s heart are slowly filled with gold, and he thinks, for the first time in his life, that he’s going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
